A Tennessee Delicacy

I've been serving in Tennessee for nearly three weeks now, and I'll never forget one of my first experiences in the mission field: eating fried frog legs.

Tastes like chicken!

I've eaten some pretty interesting food over the years, but this tops it all. I think my companion described it best: it tastes like a cross between chicken and fish. No amount of batter or ketchup could cover up the taste of the lake water from whence this little froggie came.

I started thinking about a story somebody once told me. If you stick a frog in a pot of boiling water, he will jump out of there just as fast as his little legs will let him. But if you stick a frog in a pot of room-temperature water and slowly warm the water until it reaches a boil, you will have successfully heated the frog to death.

In that sense, we're all a little bit like frogs in this crazy world. Satan doesn't stick us in a pot of boiling water. He's smarter than that, and we're smarter than that. As humans, we're pretty good at getting ourselves out of uncomfortable situations.

Instead, Satan slowly heats the water until it reaches a rolling boil. Gradually, little by little, our senses are dulled by the initially pleasant heat until we've reached a point of emergency, trauma and tragedy. Thus, using our own desires for peace, comfort and pleasure, Satan slowly boils us alive.

We're remarkably good at recognizing what we might call 'big sins'. We're less adept at recognizing and avoiding 'little sins' like pride, gossip and dishonesty. But if we linger in those sins long enough, we'll find that our ability to distinguish between good and bad has been altered—perhaps permanently. If we let Satan continue to heat the water on us, we'll find ourselves at his feast—as dinner.

The solution? Get out of the pot of water and repent! Christ is ever extending His arm of mercy, always inviting us to partake of the marvelous gift of the atonement. His promise is recorded beautifully in the Book of Mormon:

"[W]ill ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you? Yea, verily I say unto you, if ye will come unto me ye shall have eternal life. Behold, mine arm of mercy is extended towards you, and whosoever will come, him will I receive; and blessed are those who come unto me" (3 Nephi 9: 13-14).